September 4, 1994

The ordeal of a Haitian family whose members suffered brutal attacks is an example of human rights abuses in Haiti. Family members are in hiding, and with only a small number of those approved for emigration making their way out, they say their hopes of escape are fading. Article, page 18.

FOREVER etched in my memory is the test I took for my first driver's license in my parents' 1963 Chevrolet Bel Air station wagon. As if it were yesterday, I remember cranking the steering wheel with all my then-90-pound might to parallel-park the garnet-colored, two-ton behemoth and make the required three-point turn. After that experience, I swore off station wagons forever. Until, that is, the 1995 Volkswagen Passat GLX wagon arrived in my driveway.

MAKING IT WORK 3 Amid the crush of U.S. Open ephemera, someone has to take care of the basics -- the ball, the racquet, the score. NEW YORKERS & CO. 4 In the brutal money-management world, Laura Sloate is as tough as they come. No big deal, but she's also blind.

Already mired in an angry debate over abortion and women's rights, the United Nations Conference on Population and Development will confront other equally volatile issues when it opens here Monday. Can the earth sustain its present rate of population growth? Who is to blame for the destruction of natural resources, profligate consumers in industrial nations or the desperate poor in overcrowded, underdeveloped countries who strip the land of vegetation to survive? If a plan of action is adopted, who will pay for it? And where will the money go, to governments or to grass-roots groups working in villages? Will donor countries try to attach human rights or other conditions to aid?

A SON OF THE CIRCUS By John Irving. 633 pp. New York: Random House. $25.